Queen Victoria As I Knew Her Part 3

"OSBORNE, _22nd January 1873_.

"The Queen sends Mr Martin the copies of two letters that will interest him.[17] The Empress Augusta's especially is very generous and kind. The Queen thanks Mr Martin for his last letters, and is very sorry he could not have the last look, which she so very deeply regrets not having had herself. As soon as she returns to Windsor, she will go to the poor Empress...."

I had written to the Queen a full account of the funeral. To this she refers: "The reception on Thursday must have been most affecting. The dear boy is said to behave so well. The Queen sends on the copy of a letter which gives a touching trait of him. The Dean of Westminster [Stanley] the other day said it would be such a good thing, if the poor Emperor's great charm of manner, great amiability and kindness, and wonderful power of attracting people--in short, _fascination_--which the Queen herself felt very strongly, could be generally known; but he did not exactly know _how_. The Queen said she thought it might be possible to do it in Mr Martin's _Life of the Prince_; for the visits to Boulogne of the Prince _alone_ in 1854, of the Emperor and Empress to Windsor in 1855, and of ourselves to Paris in the same year are full of the greatest interest, and the Queen has a very full account of them in her Journal, which she thinks of having extracted, and she feels Mr Martin would be pleased to pay a tribute to one whose reverse of fortune and great misfortunes were borne with such dignity and patience, and without any bitterness towards others."

The Queen placed in my hands a ma.n.u.script copy of her Journal of these visits. The attractive qualities of the Emperor were so fully ill.u.s.trated by the copious extracts of which I made use in the Prince's _Life_, that it required no commentary or eulogium of mine to show them in relief. The complete Journal of these visits was printed for the Queen in 1881. It is a historical doc.u.ment, which will be of permanent interest. In sending me a copy on the 10th of October of that year, the Queen writes:--

"The little account of the two French visits in 1855 has delighted those of the Queen's children and friends--only two of the latter, as yet--to whom she has given it. But she finds a great omission on her part, and that is, of _all_ the names of all those who accompanied us to Paris.

She here sends the list, and would ask how it could be added, and sends one of the copies for him to look at and see how it could best be done,--whether as a leaf at the end of the book, or as a note like the dinner-list at Windsor, and include the Emperor and Empress's suite who came with them to Windsor."

The reply was to send a printed slip with the list of the names to be inserted at the end of the volume. With the exception of Lady Ponsonby, then Miss Bulteel (Maid of Honour), not one of the numerous persons named in the list is now alive. She is, therefore, the sole survivor of the Queen's suite who was present on the occasion of the Queen's reception at the Opera House in Paris, of which the very graphic description is given in the _Quarterly Review_ article of April last, already referred to.[18] It is a very welcome addition to the Queen's own very modest account of what must have been a remarkably brilliant and memorable scene, but of which the most she records is, that her "reception was very hearty," that _G.o.d save the Queen_ was sung splendidly, and that "there could not have been more enthusiasm in England."

In the midst of the public cares and perplexities of the time, the Queen had to face, at the end of 1871, a deeper anxiety than all other in the dangerous illness of the Prince of Wales. To place herself by his bedside, to cheer and to encourage, and never to surrender hope, however dread the symptoms, was characteristic of her strong, loving nature and brave spirit. Her conduct at that trying time drew her people nearer to her, and their sympathy bound her to them by a very tender tie. Through her kindness I was kept informed by telegram of the progress of the Prince through the extremes of danger to convalescence. Among the letters which the Queen wrote to me from Osborne after her return there with the Prince from Sandringham, the following pa.s.sage occurs:--

"OSBORNE, _Feb. 13, 1872_.

"Two new sad and shocking events have overclouded the joyful return of the dear Prince of Wales: the one which, contrasting as it did with the Queen's own case, made her feel it most keenly--viz., the death of her dear niece[19] from scarlet fever, a terrible blow to her dear sister, who is so delicate herself; the other, the horrible a.s.sa.s.sination of poor Lord Mayo, a n.o.ble and most loyal subject, and most admirable Viceroy, which has shocked the Queen dreadfully! It is awful, and _how_ could it happen? Some dreadful neglect, surely.

"The dear Prince of Wales, though quite himself, bears great traces of his fearful 'death-illness.' He seems like new-born, pleased at every tree and flower, ... and gazing on them with a sort of 'Wehmuth' which is quite touching...."

Fortunately for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, the treatment of typhus was now better understood than it had been but a few years before. "Ah!" the Queen said to me soon after this time, "had _my_ Prince had the same treatment as the Prince of Wales, he might not have died!"--one of those sad, vain imaginings of "what might have been,"

common to us all, but on which the Queen was too wise to allow her mind to dwell.

The Queen had long ceased to have reason to complain of want of appreciation on the part of the people. On the contrary, it was enthusiastically shown whenever she was seen in public, and most impressively when she went in January 1872 to the thanksgiving service in St Paul's for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. Her letters are full of expressions of satisfaction at these demonstrations of public feeling. Thus she writes, for example, to me on the 10th of April 1872: "There never was a greater success or a greater exhibition of spontaneous loyalty than the Queen's visit to the East End the other day;" and a few days later (23rd April) she calls my attention to a similar display "at two very pretty military events which took place at Parkhurst last Thursday, and here [Osborne] yesterday, on the occasion of giving new colours to the 79th Cameron Highlanders," and of her acceptance from them of the old colours. "Their former chaplain," she adds, with her usual love of detail, "who has been fourteen years with them, and in Lucknow, came on purpose to bless the colours, which he did extremely well and touchingly. It is a splendid regiment."

The great change in the public mind, which resulted in the fall of Mr Gladstone's Ministry at the beginning of 1874, took the Queen somewhat by surprise. "The result of the elections," she writes to me (10th February 1874), "is astounding. What an important turn the elections have taken! It shows that the country is not _Radical_. What a triumph, too, Mr Disraeli has obtained, and what a good sign this large Conservative majority is of the state of the country, which really required (as formerly) a strong Conservative party!"

Amid the turmoil of the elections which led to this important result a domestic incident took place--the Confirmation of the Princess Beatrice, which was communicated to me in the following letter (January 13, 1874):--

"The Queen cannot resist sending the lines which Mlle. Norele wrote on her sweet Beatrice at her Confirmation. She did so look like a lily, so very young, so gentle and good. The Queen can only pray G.o.d that this flower of the flock, which she really is (for the Queen may truly say she has never given the Queen one moment's cause of displeasure), may never leave her, but be the prop, comfort, and companion of her widowed mother to old age! She is the Queen's Benjamin."

The prayer, we know, was granted. Mlle. Norele's graceful lines form a worthy pendant to the charming picture presented in this letter. I give them with my own translation, as it pleased the Queen at the time:--

"Seule, au pied de l'autel, "Alone, at the Altar's foot, Nous l'avons contemplee, Thus was she seen, Au bonheur immortel, Humbly adoring, mute, Comme un ange, appelee. With looks serene.

De son front la candeur Awe touch'd us, and we felt Imprimait le respect, How pure that sight, Et toute sa blancheur Fair lily! as she knelt, Du lis avait l'aspect. Robed all in white.

Son ame calme et pure Within that holy spot, Semblait en ce saint lieu Her soul did seem Oublier la nature, To soar, all earth forgot, Et monter vers son Dieu. To the Supreme.

Seigneur, benis sa foi, Bless, Lord, the vow she pays, Garde-lui ton amour, Make her Thy care, Que sa vie sous ta loi So blest be all her days, Ressemble a ce beau jour!" Like this, and fair!"

In the spring of 1874 the Queen suffered a great loss in the death of her devoted and most trusted friend, M. Silvain van de Weyer.

On the 24th of April she writes:--

"The Queen has felt much regret at poor Livingstone's fate, and we are now very anxious, alas! again about dear M. Van de Weyer.[20] She herself is very much overdone and overworked, and her nerves overstrained. Never did so many things come together as this winter and spring. On the 18th of May she hopes, _D.V._, to get off to the North for a month, and then really to get rest."

Among the many deaths of relatives and friends which the Queen had to mourn within the last few years, no one was more deeply felt than that of her half-sister on 23rd September 1872. "Divided in age by eleven years, and separated by long and unavoidable absences, yet the affection of the Queen for the companion of her early childhood never failed, and the connection of the Princess as sister and aunt of the Royal Family of England was maintained with a fidelity which was never interrupted, either on the part of the Princess herself or of her ill.u.s.trious relatives." A memorial volume of the Princess's Letters to the Queen was printed in 1874 by Her Majesty, of which I had the honour to receive an early copy. A more beautiful picture of sisterly devotion it would be hard to find than is presented in this volume. From the brief introduction, in which the hand of Dean Stanley may be recognised, I have taken the words above cited. The letters themselves give the impression of a highly refined, intellectual, and sympathetic nature, which must have made the Princess very dear to those who knew her. The opinion of the volume which I expressed in thanking Her Majesty for the gift was acknowledged in the following letter, the closing words of which are especially noteworthy:--

"BALMORAL, _Nov. 19, 1874_.

"The Queen is greatly gratified by Mr Martin's opinion of the letters of her darling sister. _She_ felt proud of them, but still she could not know what others might feel, but all who have seen them admire them much! No one who did not know her intimately _could_ know what she was, for she was so modest and un.o.btrusive--not outwardly expansive, and she did not easily take to people whom she did not find sympathetic. But she was a remarkable, n.o.ble-minded, kind, good, and single-minded person, whose loss to the Queen, though we lived so much apart, is daily more keenly felt.

The Prince had the greatest respect and admiration for her, and said she would have been worthy of a crown. But, oh! _how unenviable is that!_"

How the Princess loved and was beloved by the Queen may be seen from a pa.s.sage, quoted at the end of the volume above referred to, in a letter found among the papers of the Princess, and marked to be given to the Queen after her death:--

"I can never thank you enough for all you have done for me, for your great love and tender affection. These feelings cannot die; they must and will live on with my soul--till we meet again, never more to be separated,--and now you will not forget

"Your only own loving sister,

"FEODORA."

CHAPTER IV.

It was the autumn of 1874, nearly seven years after I had undertaken to write the _Life_ of the Prince Consort, before I found myself able to prepare the first volume for the press. Although I had from the first foreseen that the work would involve a greater amount of labour than was contemplated by the Queen, it soon became obvious that I had myself under-estimated it. As I advanced in my preparations the materials that came into my hands grew greater and greater, and I saw that, to give a true picture of the Prince, my book must be in effect a history of the Queen's reign from the time of his marriage till his death, while it would at the same time be a biography not of him only, but in a great measure of Her Majesty also. I had made considerable progress in the collection of my materials when I became aware of a body of information, valuable beyond all others, which had been acc.u.mulated by the Prince himself, and which had been shut away and seen by no one since his death. As if to a.s.sure himself that an authentic record of this period of the reign should not be wanting, every doc.u.ment, letter, despatch, private as well as public, which had pa.s.sed under the eyes and hands of the Queen and himself in reference to affairs of State, to communications with foreign Courts, or to public events in which they had taken a part, had been cla.s.sified and preserved in an immense ma.s.s of folio volumes, to which the Queen afforded me free access.

These in a measure enabled me to live through the crowded years of the Prince's life. But the study of them, the bulk of the most important doc.u.ments being in ma.n.u.script, and not a few of them in the cramped German _current Schrift_, was a severe strain upon both patience and eyesight. Months were spent in the perusal and selection of what might be used, especially as the contents of these volumes were often so confidential that they had to be read, transcribed, and translated solely by myself.

I had stipulated that I should not be expected to write of the Prince until I had followed his life to its close, and every step I made in my researches confirmed me in this resolution. It was a disappointment to the Queen that I could not show the fruits of my labour so early as she wished, naturally eager as she was that full justice should be done, and done quickly, to the Prince's memory. But when I was able to explain, in the numerous conferences which pa.s.sed upon the subject, how elaborate were the preparations I was making, how important and voluminous the records to which I was trusting as the basis of what I had to write, Her Majesty became content to wait, and took a deep interest in the development of the narrative, which not infrequently recalled interesting incidents and discussions which had for a time, but for a time only, escaped her marvellous memory.

Every chapter, as I wrote it, was submitted to the Queen, and most carefully read and noted by her. No slip in a date or name escaped her notice, and her fine tact never failed to call attention to any expression that could be modified with advantage. But from first to last I was left to the free development of narrative and the expression of my own opinions. The independence for which I had stipulated at the outset was most loyally respected; and I reflect with satisfaction on the fact, that at no point throughout the five volumes to which the _Life_ extended did any conflict of opinion arise between Her Majesty and myself. An incident will serve to show how anxious the Queen herself was that my entire independence should be maintained. When I came in 1876 to write the story of the Crimean war I felt myself in a difficulty. The second son of Her Majesty had married the daughter of the reigning Czar in 1874. It was impossible to say what I had to say of Russia without giving expression to views that could not be otherwise than unacceptable at the Russian Court. How was I to act, as my work of necessity must have the sanction of the Queen? I therefore sought an interview with Her Majesty and explained my difficulty. What was her instant answer? "Do not let the fact of my son's marriage into the Russian family weigh with you for a moment! Whatever conclusions you come to upon the facts and doc.u.ments before you, express them as if no such marriage existed!" Here, as always, truth I found was the paramount consideration with the Queen.

It may be conceived how my responsibility was lightened and my labour cheered by the perfect freedom allowed to me as well as by the warm encouragement I received from the Queen, and her growing interest in the work as it advanced. Her heart was set upon the completion of an adequate and true memorial of the Prince, and, with all the information of every kind placed at my disposal, he became to me as if I had lived through the years with him.

Until they had seen the first volume of my book some of the Queen's children were rather adverse to the idea of any _Life_ of the Prince being published so soon. They had a natural fear that it would not do justice to the father whose memory was so tenderly dear to them, and the incidents of whose life were in a measure sacred in their eyes. One of these was the Princess Alice, and in order to remove her impression the Queen wrote to her (24th June 1874) as follows, and sent me a copy of the letter:--

"I do not think, that as so many memoirs of statesmen and people of the same time have been published, that it is too soon to publish a discreet Life of beloved Papa; indeed, much that has appeared without permission, or, I must think, reflection, in the dear old Baron's _Life_, rendered it necessary not to delay in putting things before the world, with all the sides to them, that did not appear in that _Life_. It will be of much use to posterity and to Princes to see what an unselfish, self-sacrificing, and in many ways hard and unenviable life beloved Papa's was."

After the first volume was published the doubts of the Princess Alice disappeared, and the Queen, with her habitual consideration, sent me a letter to read, which she received from the Princess, expressing her warm commendation of what I had done. The Princess wrote to me herself in the same strain, and from every member of the family I received the most warm congratulations on my work. This seemed to give great satisfaction to the Queen, for it was her desire that the biographical memorial should be as welcome to them as to herself.

As each subsequent volume appeared, I received a.s.surances from Her Majesty of her grat.i.tude for the spirit in which I had carried out her wishes, and from all her children came the warmest acknowledgments of the success of my endeavour to do justice to their father's memory.

When, in January 1880, I wrote to the Queen with the concluding chapter of the last volume of the _Life_, and mentioned, in doing so, with what emotion it was written, this was the answer I received:--

"OSBORNE, _January 27, 1880_.

"The Queen thanks Mr Martin most warmly for his touching letter accompanying the _last_ chapter of her beloved Husband's _Life_. She thanks him from her heart for the pains and trouble he has taken in the execution of this difficult and arduous undertaking, in which he has so admirably succeeded, and at the same time congratulates him on having completed it. She can well understand the tears that must have been shed in doing so, though Mr Martin did not know the dear Prince personally.

"In the meantime, before she can in a more public manner express her high sense of his services, the Queen asks Mr Martin to accept the accompanying bronze statuette reduced from Marochetti's monument in the Mausoleum.[21] The Queen would wish also to thank Mr Martin for the kind and feeling manner in which he has performed his difficult task."

The Queen's kindness did not stop here. I was ill, overtasked with very heavy professional work, at the same time that I was writing the last chapters of my book. For months I had been engaged along with the late Mr Edmund Smith in negotiating, and successfully negotiating, for Lord Beaconsfield's Government, the purchase of the undertakings of all the London Water Companies, and preparing the Bill for vesting them in a public trust. The measure was defeated on Mr Gladstone's return to office in April 1880, and for this defeat it may safely be said the community of London has ever since had to suffer severely. Rest and change were essential for my recovery, and I at once determined to seek them in Venice and the north of Italy. Two days before I started I was commanded to dine with Her Majesty at Windsor, and on my arrival I was knighted and invested by her own hands with the Collar and Star of a Knight Commander of the Bath, the act being accompanied by words of commendation far more precious to me than any t.i.tle of honour. The Queen had chosen for the ceremony the Prince Consort's working room, where all my conferences with her on the subject of the _Life_ had taken place. Her Majesty, I subsequently found, had some difficulty in getting the Star and Collar of the Bath ready in so short a time: I could not, therefore, but recognise in the prompt.i.tude of her action the kind thought, that the honour, which would come upon me by surprise, might help to cheer me in the search for health on which I was going abroad.